Leadership style of Ysela Llort at Miami-Dade Transit

Leadership

My organization is Miami-Dade Transit, for which I am a bus operator. The Transit system is an independent operating entity within the government of Miami-Dade County. Leadership of this company is typically appointed, and this was the case of the current Director, Ysela Llort. She was posted to the position at Transit in February 2012, after a career spanning many different units within the county, including Public Works, Aviation and Seaport, as well as an earlier role at Transit. Her background is diverse enough that she not only can effectively manage the transit system for one of the most highly-populated counties in the country but also that she can perform a role as liaison with the county, the government entity that funds and provides oversight for the Transit division. This paper will examine the leadership style of Ms. Llort, in the context of my experiences working there.

Leadership Style

Llort came to power in 2012, and was charged with guiding a scandal-plagued Transit division back to respectability. In 2010, there was a major scandal with federal funds that went missing (CBS, 2010). Llort had been involved in the investigation of this incident and so her appointment was intended to improve the leadership and instill a more ethical culture into the highest levels of the organization.

The role within the Transit division requires a leadership style that is mostly transactional, and this is the style that Llort has adopted. She is focused on providing a quiet ethical leadership as well. The transactional leadership style emphasizes that team members should obey the leader, that they have agreed to this when they take the job. The leader then ensures that all team members have tasks set out for them, along with measures of success. The leadership under this style is relatively centralized, and is based on the idea that the organization needs to run efficiently and effectively (MindTools, 2013).

Llort's leadership style also has elements of bureaucratic leadership. At the county, bureaucracy is very important so to find oneself in a leadership position almost always requires having an orientation to a bureaucratic leadership style. This style emphasizes following rules rigorously and developing procedures for tasks that must be followed (MindTools, 2013). We as bus operators have specific instructions for how to perform the basic tasks of our jobs, and it is the same for my co-workers in maintenance, human resources and other departments.

In my experience, Llort has done a good job on the bureaucratic/transaction side of leadership. There are clear guidelines that we work to. In a bus system the most important thing is that the buses need to run on time and that they keep to their schedule. So there are specific procedures and rules in place to ensure that this is how the bus system works. This type of leadership was lacking a little bit before, where maybe there was not as much enforcement of the rules, and things did not work as well. So as far as making sure that things are running better and that we are therefore providing better service to our bus riders, I think that Llort has done a good job on the transactional side of things. She has been active in highlighting the importance of having a well thought-out set of rules and procedures, and this has benefitting the organization significantly.

The other side of leadership is the transformational side. One thing that needed to be done was to give a better ethical culture, and more vision for the future. The Transit division I think has gone through stages where it has a lot of vision, which has resulted in projects like the People Mover and the MetroRail, but there are also times when there is not as much vision. The people who work for the Transit division want to have a leader that can provide vision, direction and something for us to work for so that we do not just feel like it is just a job. One of the first things that Llort did when she arrived was to launch an extension of MetroRail to the airport, which would give people a direct rail link between the airport and downtown, where there are connections to the beach. So this project is really important for economic development especially in the tourism industry. Llort was able to bring this project on board quickly after being hired and that is something that I think provides a big sense of vision and accomplishment (Miami Today, 2012).

She has also been tasked with restoring and rebuilding the ethical culture at Transit, something that had become a problem under prior leadership. The federal government was hesitant to provide funds for transit because of the fraud that had occurred previously. Llort has not opted for the transformational approach with respect to ethics, but has utilized her transactional approach to solve this problem. She has approached the culture issue by implementing stronger controls on the management of funds. With stronger controls, that sends a signal to the people in the department about the importance of following the rules. So by strengthening the rules Llort has also strengthened the ethical culture. There are still challenges, so I think that this is a work in progress, but it is good to have a leader who wants to change the system.

Organizational Culture

I have found that the organizational culture has improved in the past few years. I feel that this helps me with my communication because my voice is considered to be important. One of the things that Llort has stated is that it is important to be a good listener (Miami Today, 2012) and that has changed the tone of communication within the organization. There was a time when maybe it was easy to become disgruntled and feel like nobody cared about the problems you were having on the job, but I think I am seeing a change. The change might be gradual, but there is a sense that people at the top are more willing to listen to the workers and work together to make things better.

For me, this strengthens the communication within the organization. I feel like the workers are a bit more empowered to voice their opinions and work with management to make things better. I have myself been more willing to say things when working in this more open culture.

Evaluation

In many cases, a leader can and should be evaluated on the outcomes of the organization (LeMay, 2008), since the leader is responsible for making sure those outcomes come to pass. For Ms. Llort, she had a mandate to improve the ethical culture and restore the faith of the federal government in our organization, and to build bridges with the workers. I feel that she has done a good job, maybe not a great job but so far things are a little bit better. I think that strengthening the rules has been something that makes all of us better, and it puts more emphasis on building a better organization overall, with strong ethics that allow us to thrive in adverse times.

The outcomes with respect to organization are pretty good, and that is in terms of employee happiness, transit measures like how many busses are late (this is going down) and those sorts of measures. I feel that the data I am aware of is generally positive. I also feel that most of us working there are more excited to contribute to this success than we have been before. It is a work in progress, definitely, but the signs are encouraging to be sure. I think that I feel more empowered just because I know what is expected of me, and that I will be held accountable if I fail to deliver that. But I also feel more motivated because I can see how my actions contribute to the success of the entire Transit department, and what role that plays in making for a better community.

Diversity

Here in Miami-Dade we have a very diverse society. Many people are from other countries. We have three official languages, and I think we are the only county in the country that does. So the managers really need to be able to communicate effectively with Cubans, Haitians, African-Americans and Caucasians from all over. This can be quite a challenge, especially to people from other parts of the country. You really have to be from here to understand the different social dynamics at work. I think that this is where listening is a good skill to have, so that you can find maybe some common themes that we all care about no matter what culture we are. Wanting to do a good job, putting a high value on family and things like that translate to anybody, whether you speak Spanish or Creole or English. So relating to people on that human level is really important for managing diversity.

Business Strategy

I think that Transit is on the right path. What is needed know is a little bit more inspiration. We have the rules and the procedures, but if we could have more of inspirational leadership I think that would really get things going. As a business strategy, I think it would be valuable to do a little bit of leadership training at the lower levels. For example, even if I think Ms. Llort is doing a good job, I do not see her very often, maybe once a year. So what we really need is to get a lot of visionary leadership and motivation from the leaders we do see. That is something I would build into my business strategy, to improve the leadership training aspect of Transit so that there are more leaders throughout the different levels of the company.